Tachyarrhythmias are abnormal heart rhythms characterized by a rapid heart rate, typically expressed in units of beats per minute (bpm). They can occur in either chamber of the heart (i.e., ventricles or atria) or both. Examples of tachyarrhythmias include sinus tachycardia, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation (VF), atrial tachycardia, and atrial fibrillation (AF). Tachycardia is characterized by a rapid rate, either due to an ectopic excitatory focus or abnormal excitation by normal pacemaker tissue, while fibrillation occurs when the chamber depolarizes in a chaotic fashion with abnormal depolarization waveforms as reflected by an EKG.
An electrical shock applied to a heart chamber (i.e., defibrillation or cardioversion) can be used to terminate most tachyarrhythmias by depolarizing excitable myocardium, which thereby prolongs refractoriness, interrupts reentrant circuits, and discharges excitatory foci. Implantable cardioverter/defibrillators (ICDs) provide this kind of therapy by delivering a shock pulse to the heart when fibrillation is detected by the device. ICDs can be designed to treat either atrial or ventricular tachyarrhythmias, or both, and may also incorporate cardiac pacing functionality. The most dangerous tachyarrhythmias are ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation, and ICDs have most commonly been applied in the treatment of those conditions.
ICDs are also capable, however, of detecting atrial tachyarrhythmias, such as atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, and delivering a shock pulse to the atria in order to terminate the arrhythmia. Although not immediately life-threatening, it is important to treat atrial fibrillation for several reasons. First, atrial fibrillation is associated with a loss of atrio-ventricular synchrony which can be hemodynamically compromising and cause such symptoms as dyspnea, fatigue, vertigo, and angina. Atrial fibrillation can also predispose to strokes resulting from emboli forming in the left atrium. Although drug therapy and/or in-hospital cardioversion are acceptable treatment modalities for atrial fibrillation, ICDs configured to treat atrial fibrillation offer a number of advantages to certain patients, including convenience and greater efficacy.
No matter what treatment modality is used, it would be beneficial if there were a technique by which the risk of atrial fibrillation could be assessed at any particular time. A convenient way of assessing atrial fibrillation risk would be useful both in screening patients and as an aid to treatment planning. Such a technique could also be used by implantable or external devices in delivering therapy or in performing a monitoring function.